Musings
by Aznereth
Summary: The Third Shinobi War goes on. Daily and nightly, different forces clash each other in order to get an advantage. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. This OC though… Yep, I was toying with her concept shortly after Naruto's ending. Need I to say I am pretty lazy? :D

Small burst of sparks and horizontal slash at throat did its lethal trick, blood freely flowing in the air. Masked shinobi slumped at the ground, all strength already faded. He managed to react to first strike, but the second came all too sudden for him to follow, too fast to manage a counteraction.

His assailant calmly crouched over the fresh corpse. Even if smitten Kiri hunter-nin had feinted instead of suffering an immediate death he would have found out the hard way the weapon was poisoned with effective paralyzing serum anyway. With soft exhale, petite Anbu made a hand-seal in order to check the body for hidden traps.

Nothing happened. No tricks, no comrades to lash out in a righteous vengeance. No self-destruction seal either. Almost disappointing, such encounter.

There was nothing special: simply a dead man and his killer, participating in silent war amongst operatives. As if global Third Shinobi War was not enough. No, that part of war could be counted even more important than massive battles between armies of Chunnin and handful of Jounin, or their team missions. Elite assassins carried their gruesome task of eliminating most important targets there… Or each other. An Invisible war, this one.

The winner of this struggle wore the mask resembling of serpent, dressed into Konoha ANBU gear, including gray cloak. For some reason, that shinobi was not wearing protective gloves, revealing a pair of delicate pale hands.

One gentle touch at the fallen ninja's chest… And both of them sunk into the ground, as if they never were here. All traces of short duel were already cleaned out. ANBU had a reputation of being the best shinobi aside from their Kage for a reason, after all.

"So you _were_ in the list". Shiromi whispered on the tree with air of quiet satisfaction. Now that she unmasked freshly killed Kiri Anbu she could see his facial features to compare them to her Bingo Box… And cross one of the faces in it.

The man she killed was not _that_ important in the larger scale of picture. Still, in a struggle between great villages each kill matters. Each killed Anbu? It matters even more. Each killed Anbu, whose corpse could be successfully retrieved in relatively good shape? With some luck, the gathered information from such a corpse could tip the scales in the war. And yes, dead men _do_ tell tales. It simply takes to have a _dedicated_ interrogator. Fortunately for already dead nin, there was no need for such measures: Even if he was an Anbu, he _was not_ that important in the larger scale of picture. His soul may rest in the Pure World, or whatever place souls of deceased go… As for his corpse? It had its uses.

Tonight her _primary_ objective is eliminating nearly hostile shinobi in quickest way possible, not subduing them for information. She could have taken this one alive, but she was not sure whether that warranted a worthwhile risk of alerting nearby shinobi. There were at least 3 more in nearby 10 kilometers. She was sure they had not sensed her presence yet. So she had an advantage. More so, given the fact she acquired a fresh body. Now it was time to change appearance.

Still sitting on the large branch Shiromi sealed the corpse into special scroll and made a quick sequence of hand seals: The trophy mask had already placed on her face.

" _Transformation jutsu_ "

Her Father was true genius when it came to developing and improving ninjutsu techniques. His variation of the Henge with using victim's DNA was nearly flawless, perfectly imitating such attributes as smell, voice and breathing without need to spend chakra on such mundane features. Replicating someone's chakra signature to extent no one could tell the difference was beyond her reach though. So she made her best efforts to conceal her presence anyway.

Ninja, wearing Kiri Anbu attire, jumped from the tree.

The mission still goes on.

The second kill was both anticlimactic and simply _messy_ …

Still wearing her disguise Shiromi was swiftly moving through forest… Until she had found a small puddle of water near roots of the tree she was currently at. It rained recently, but when she looked at it closely, while being hidden well enough, she could see that was a carefully placed ambush.

Kunai with explosive tag did its work. Was it so unexpected that only an upper body of poor unfortunate soul had flown away from the puddle? She was masking her presence well it would seem. And this one was not a sensor.

Remaining two ninjas had not been wasting their time either. Just the moment Shiromi jumped to grisly remains, she found herself dodging a valley of senbons. So much for the disguise, but in her line of work better do every trick to stay hidden than risk death because she was not careful enough. As for why she had not sensed them before?

Her sensor ability was good enough to sense enemies within 20 kilometres. Still, she had to concentrate and stay immobile at least for a minute to use it. One could say she became careless enough to rush for a kill, without worrying about falling to trap.

" _They had been waiting for me"_

She tapped her left shoulder. Next moment there was puff of smoke. The enemy could not see that, but now she brandished a katana. Kirigakure shinobi were known for their prominence with swords, so that encounter could become a test of her kenjutsu skills.

Soon, the peaceful night was pierced by screams once more. In this invisible war it is to kill, or be killed. Or to suffer the fate worse than death – become captured for information, in rare cases – ransom, or a special fate for kunoichi like her – to become a breeding slave in enemy's hope to replicate one's Kekkei Genkai.

In her years being a shinobi she learned one thing:

In this world, mortality is severely underrated. And morality? Just a pretty word in the world full of predators and assassins.

But she had already been beyond caring. After all, it is a _natural_ way of things: there is always the predator and the prey. No matter how _every single village_ wanted a peace, they would _forever_ bicker and fight each other until an actual miracle will happen. Only the most lucky will find their way home: either on their own legs, or in caskets. But many more will not even have a proper burial rites.

Even if she had not a hope for such miracle, a small, innocent part of her was wondering, what a miracle could it take to stop all this constant fighting…

For now though? She was feasting on corpses to fill a void in her soul at least for a little bit.

A.N. Hello there)

First of all, this is oneshot, or snippet. I'd like to write a full story with this OC, but, as you can see, my writing skills are not that well. I even did not write a decent fighting scene, let alone better description of OC's appearance). I have another snippet with another battle, but I am still polishing it. Critic is appreciated, as ideas to improve my scenario.

As for this character: Let's just say for now this scene took place in AU Third Shinobi War. NOT a SI. This is AU "because" _someone very sneaky_ projected his consciousness into the past after Kaguya managed to kill Team 7.


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